A. Shakur To My People

TO MY ?E0

Black brothers, Black sisters, I want you to know that X love you
and I hope that somewhere in your hehrt you have love for me. My
name is Assata Shalcur (slave name JoAnne Chesimard), and I am a
revolutionary* A Black revolutionary. By that I mean that I am
a field nigga who is determined to be free by any means necessary.

By that I mean, that I can never be free unless all of ray people are
free along with me. By that I mean that I have declared war on all
forces that have raped our women, castrated o.ur men and kept our
babies empty bellied,

! ■ ■

I have declared war on thr rich who prosper on our poverty. The
politicians who lie to us with smiling faces and all the mindless
heartless robots who protect them and their property,

I am a Black revolutionary, and as such I am the .victim of all the
v/rath, hatred and slander that amerikkka is- capable of. Like all
other Black revolutionaries I have been hunted like a dog, and like
all other Black revolutionaries, amerikkka is trying to lynch me.

I am a Black revolutionary v:oman and because of this I have been
charged with and accused of every alldgcd crime in which a woman
was believed to have participated. The alleged crimes in vdiich
only men were supposedly involved, I have been accused of planning.
They have plastered pictures alleged to be me in post offices, air¬
ports , hotels, police cars, subways, banks, televisions and nevrs-
papers. They have offered over Fifty Thousand Dollars ($50,000) in
rewards for my;capture and they have issued orders to shoot on sight
and shoot to kill.

I am a Black revolutionary and, by definition, that makes me part
of the Black Liberation Army. The pigs have used their newspapers
and TVs to paint the Black Liberation Army to be vicious, brutal
mag dog criminals. They have called us gangsters and gun molls and
have compared us to such characters as John dillcngcr and ma barker.
It should be clear, it must be clear to anyone who can think, sec or
hear, that vo are the victims. The victims and not the criminals.

It should also be clear to us by now who the real criminals arc.
Nixon and his crime partners have murdered hundreds of thousands of
Third Moria brothers and sisters in Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos,
Mosambi^ue, Angola and South Africa, As was proven by the Later-
gate, the top law enforcement officials in this country arc a lying
bunch of criminals. The president, two attorney generals, the head
of the fbi, the head of the cia, and half the white house staff
have been implicated in the A/atcrgate crimes.

They call us murderers, but we did not murder over 250 unarmed
Black men, women and children, and wound thousands of others in t!
riots they provoked during thj Sixties. The rulers of this count:
have always considered their property more important than our liY'
They call us murderers, but wc were not responsible for the more
than 6,000 Black people lynched by white racists. They call us
murderers, but we were not responsible for the 2b brother inmates

ana or

c 9 hostages r.a
wc did net murder anc
massacre,
students at Jr

Orangeburg
Black

*dorod at attics. s They call us murderers, a
wound over 30 unarmed Black students in the
Lc aid not shoot down and murder unarmed
-rr'or state or Southern State either.

They call us murderers, but we did not murder Martin Luther King,•
Emmit Till, Uedger Evers, Malcolm X, George Jackson, Mat Turner,
James Chaney and countless other Black Freedom Fighters. 'Me did
not bomb 4 Black little girls in a Sunday school, \Jo did not mur¬
der, by shooting in the back, 1 6 -year old Rita Lloyd, 11-year old
Rickie Bodden, or 10-year olcLClifford Glover.

They call us murderers, but v;e do not control or enforce a system
of racism and oppression that systematically murder Black and Third
World people. Although Black people supposedly comprise about 15$
of the total amcrikkkan population, at least 60$ of murder victims
arc Black, For every pig that is killed in the so-called lino ef
duty* there are at least 50 Black people murdered by police.

Black life expectancy is much lower than white and they do their
best to kill us before we are born, Ue are burned alive in fire-
trap tenements. Our brothers and sisters 0. D, daily from
heroin and methadone. Our babies die from lead poisoning. Mil¬
lions of Black people have died as a result, of indecent medical ■" " :■
care. This is murder. But they have the gall to call us murderers-.

They call us kidnappers, yet Brother Clark Squire (who is accused
along with me, of murdering a Mew Jersey state trooper), wss. kid¬
napped on April 2, 1969 , from our Black community and held on
$100,000 ransom in the Hew York Panther 21 conspiracy case. He was -
acquitted on May 13, 1971 along' with all the others of all 156
counts of conspiracy by a jury-that took less than 2 hours to delib¬
erate, Brother Squire was innocent. Yet he was kidnapped from his
community and family. Over two years of his life were stolen, but .
they call us kidnappers. They call us kidnappers, but we did not
kidnap the thousands of Brothers and Sisters held captive in amer- ■
ikkka f s concentration camps, 90$ of the prison population in this
country are Black and Third World people who can afford neither
bail nor lawyers.

They call us thieves and bandits. They say we steal. But it
not us who stole millions of Black people from the continent
Africa, Me were robbed of our language, of our Gods, of our
ture, of our human dignity, of our labor and of our lives, T
call us thieves yet it is not us who rip off billions of doll
every year through tax evasions, illegal price fixing, embess
ment, consumer fraud, bribes, kickbacks and swindles. They c
bandits, yet every time most Black people pick up our paychec
are being robbed. Every time we walk into a store in our noi
borhood wo are being held up. And every time we pay our rent
landlord sticks a gun. into our ribs.

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They call us thieves, but v r e did not rob and murder millions of
Indians by ripping off their homeland, then call ourselves pion¬
eers. They call us bandits, but it is not us who are robbing
Africa, Asia and Latin America of their natural resources and
freedom while the people arc sick and starving. The rulers cf
this country and their flunkies have committed some of the most
brutal, vicious crimes in history. They arc the bandits. They are
the murderers. And they should be treated as such. These maniacs
are not fit to judge me, Clark Squire, or any other Black person
on trial in aoorikicka. Black people should, and> inevitably nvast>

~ 3 ~

determine our destinies.

Every revolution in history has been accomplished by actions, al¬
though words are necessary. We must create shields that protect
us and spears that penetrate our enemies. Black people must learn
„ how to struggle by struggling, 'v/e must learn much by our mistakes,

I Want to apologise to you, my Black brothers and sisters, for
being on the Mew Jersey Turnpike, I should have known better.

The'Turnpike is a check point where Black people are stopped,
searched, harrassed, and assaulted. Revolutionaries must never be
in too much of a hurry or make careless decisions,. He who runs
when the sun is sleeping will stumble many times.

Every time a Black Freedom Fighter is murdered or captured the
pigs try to create the impression that they have squashed the
movement, destroyed our forces and put down the Black Revolution.
The pigs also try to give the impression that 5 or 10 Guerillas
are responsible for every revolutionary action §arricd but in
amerikkka. That is nonsense. That is absurd. Black revolution¬
aries do not drop from the noon. We are created by our conditions,
shaped by our oppression, tie. a^re being manufactured in droves
in ghetto streets; places like Attica, San Quentin, Bedford Hills,
Leavenworth and Sing Sing, They are turning out thousands of us.
Many jobless Black veterans and welfare mothers are joining our
ranks. Brothers and sisters- from all walks of life who are tired
of suffering passively make up the BLA,

There is and always.will be, until every Black man, woman and
child is free, a Blade Liberation Army. The main function of the
Black Liberation Army at this time is to create good examples to
struggle for Black freedom and to prepare for the future. We must
defend ourselves and let noone disrespect us. \7e must gain our
liberation by any means necessary.

It is our duty to fight for our freedom.-

It is our duty' to win.

V/e must love each other and support each other.

V/E HAVE NOTHING TO LOST BUT OUR CHAINS’

IN THE SPIRIT OF:

RONALD CARTER
T/ILLIAM CHRISTMAS
MIRK CLARK
MARK ESSEX
'FRANK HEAVY FIELDS
WOODY CHANGA OLUGBALA GREEN
FRED HAMPTON
LIL T BOBBY HUTTON

GEORGE JACKSON
JONATHAN JACKSON
JAMES McCLAIN
HAROLD RUSSELL
ZAYD MALIK SHAKUR
ANTHONY KIMU OLUGBALA
V/HITE

V/E MUST FIGHT ON:’’